The Romanian company Vestmoldtransgaz (previously owned by the Moldovan government) has been granted a five-year lease to manage Moldova’s gas transportation system.
According to the press service of the Ministry of Energy of Moldova, the relevant lease agreement was signed with Moldovatransgaz, a subsidiary of Moldovagaz.
Under the terms of the contract, Vestmoldtransgaz will also receive the existing maintenance contracts.
The transfer process is conditioned by Moldova’s obligations under the EU’s Third Energy Package, which provides for the unbundling of supply, transportation and distribution in the gas market.
In June 2023, Moldovagaz announced that it was not in time to complete the certification process and the separation of Moldovatransgaz from the parent company. In July, the government approved a draft law that prescribes the procedure for revoking the license of the GTS operator and transferring its assets to another company. The bill was approved in the first reading by the Moldovan parliament.
“Moldovagaz was established in 1999. Gazprom owns 50% of the company’s shares, the Moldovan government 35.33%, and the Transnistrian Property Management Committee 13.44%.
“Vestmoldtransgaz operates the Iaşi-Ungheni-Chisinau gas pipeline between Romania and Moldova. The company was established in 2014 and sold to Eurotransgaz (a subsidiary of the Romanian state-owned Transgaz) in 2018. The shareholders are currently Transgaz (75%) and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) (25%).
Moldova has been offering assistance with the transit of Ukrainian grain since the beginning of the war, and now it is trying to find a solution that will suit Moldovan farmers and help Kiev, Moldovan President Maia Sandu has said.
Speaking about the situation with Ukrainian grain, Sandu called it a “complicated topic.”
“We are trying to find a solution. There are discussions with Ukraine, Romania and the European Commission to see how we can harmonize the interests of Moldovan farmers, but also ensure this transit of grain from Ukraine. We have an obligation to help Ukraine, which today provides for our peace,” she told RFI.
According to her information, Moldova will try to find the best solution for both sides. One of them is rapid investment in transportation and port infrastructure to increase capacity for this period.
“We want to increase our exports, we want to develop our infrastructure, and we can do it, in particular with the resources of the European Union,” she explained.
Sandu spoke about the problem of farmers in Moldova who, even before the war in Ukraine, did not have enough capacity to export.
“We have to state that the railroad and port infrastructure in Moldova is underdeveloped. Now, when these large volumes are coming from Ukraine, the situation has become more complicated,” Sandu said.
As reported, Moldova intends to modernize the railway infrastructure and railway bed in order to increase exports of Ukrainian agricultural goods, for which it cooperates with Romania, Ukraine and donor organizations.
The European Union has fully exempted imports of agricultural products from Moldova from duties and quotas, extending and expanding the current temporary preferential treatment.
“The extension and expansion of the (preferential) measures aims to further expand the existing trade flows from Moldova to the EU, and this will support the Moldovan economy,” said Hector Gomez Hernandez – Minister of Industry, Trade and Tourism of Spain, which holds the presidency of the Council of the EU until the end of the year.
He emphasized that Thursday’s EU Council decision is particularly important given the ongoing military actions in Ukraine, as well as the fact that Moldova was granted EU candidate status a year ago.
Trade between the EU and Moldova is mostly liberalized under the 2014 Association Agreement. Duties were imposed on imports of only seven products to the EU: plums, table grapes, apples, tomatoes, garlic, cherries and grape juice. Introduced a year ago and valid until July 24, the preferential regime provides duty-free quotas for these products. The current decision suspends all remaining tariff rate quotas (TRQs) for one year.
The preferential treatment of imports from Moldova of the said products will entail a loss of EU customs revenues, but it will amount to about 0.3 million euros per year, so its impact on the Union budget will be “very limited,” the press release said.
The measures are expected to help Moldova further reorient its exports to the EU. Overall, its volume is set to increase from €1.8 billion in 2021 to €2.6 billion in 2022.
Moldova in January-March 2023 increased 6.5 times the export of alcoholic beverages to Ukraine – up to $ 9.40 million compared to the same period last year ($ 1.44 million), the National Bank of Moldova (NBM) said.
“With a share of 17.6% of the total export volume, Ukraine has become the main market for Moldovan alcohol, pushing Belarus and Romania to second and third place with shares of 17.1% and 14.5%, respectively,” – as quoted from NBM information, Moldovan edition mold-street.com
At the same time, Ukraine was on the first place among the importers of alcohol to Moldova, Russia – on the eighth.
In the first quarter of this year, Moldova increased the export of alcohol and ethyl alcohol by 26.8%, which in monetary terms amounted to $ 53.47 million.
The Kiev analytical Club of Experts, in order to promote Ukrainian wine, began a series of seminars and tastings. You can learn more about it by following the link
Moldova will provide Ukraine with assistance worth 4.2 million lei (about 220,000 euros) to eliminate the environmental and humanitarian consequences of the Kakhovka hydroelectric dam explosion. A decree to that effect by the National Commission for Emergency Situations was published on the Moldovan government website.
The aid package will include water pumping stations, inflatable boats, food and equipment necessary to alleviate the consequences of the flood.
It is noted that the equipment will be provided from the reserves of the General Inspectorate of Emergency Situations and the Material Reserves Agency.
The National Energy Regulatory Agency (ANRE) of Moldova has decided to reduce the gas tariff for final consumers to 18.06 lei per 1 cubic meter (including VAT).
The National Agency has urgently examined the request of Moldovagaz company at a meeting on Wednesday.
As earlier reported, on June 5, Moldovagaz submitted a request for gas tariff decrease to ANRE. The company explained its request by the decrease in purchase prices of natural gas. The distributor asked to reduce the weighted average tariff by 36.8% – down to 16,492 thousand Moldovan lei per 1,000 cubic meters. It was proposed to reduce the final tariff for residential consumers, including VAT, by 31.9% – from MDL 29.27 to MDL 19.93 per 1 cubic meter.
Thus, the tariff was reduced by 38%.
The last time the gas prices in Moldova were reviewed in autumn 2022, the prices for households rose by 27.3% – from MDL 23 to MDL 29.27 per 1 cubic meter.
Natural gas tariffs in Moldova are set by ANRE upon request of suppliers.
The official exchange rate as of June 7 – 17.82 lei/$1.
